


what you don't have now will come back again

by littleghost



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 21:29:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7700353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleghost/pseuds/littleghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Kent is taken aback by everyone smiling; he hasn’t given a genuine smile since Murray called his name.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Kent Parson is drafted first overall. Or: the 2009 Entry Draft to the Las Vegas Aces's season opener.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what you don't have now will come back again

**Author's Note:**

> title from noah and the whale's [l.i.f.e.g.o.e.s.o.n.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbGUEelmzxo)
> 
> thanks to Lexy for cheering me on even though she knows nothing about check please!

Kent watches Jack take two pills when he wakes up. Jack catches his eye in the bathroom mirror, Kent still lying in the bed they shared. He rolls over, tries to pretend that if he acts like he has just woken up, it didn’t happen.

Something heavy sits in his gut during breakfast. Jack isn’t eating anything, not even a protein shake, and is just taking small sips of his water. There’s a plate full of eggs and bacon in front of him, and Kent points to it.

“Something wrong?” He asks, hoping to sound nonchalant. He doesn’t know if he does or not, because Jack has a faraway look in his eyes when he mumbles, “Not feeling it.”

Kent frowns. Even during their run for the Memorial Cup when the idea of eating made them want to throw up, Jack still ate. He remembers when Jack’s Lexapro dosage was upped from 20 mg to 30 mg. Jack didn’t eat for awhile, he felt faint.

Jack has 60 mg of Lexapro in him. Kent doesn’t know much about meds, but that much change in dosage can’t be good.

Breakfast is tense after that. No one in the hotel looks at them, and Jack’s parents don’t join them for the meal. Maybe they want the two to have their own time together. The why doesn't matter, but he knows if the Zimmermanns saw Jack they’d know something was wrong.

He gets dressed in the bathroom, and attempts to flatten out his cowlick. It doesn’t stay in place, no matter how much gel he puts on it. He gives up, and tries to wash out as much out as possible. 

“Kenny, can you tie my tie?” Jack calls through the door. Kent takes one last look at himself in the mirror, and gives himself a nod. It’s as close as a self-pep talk as he’ll get.

“Sure,” he says, and steps out of the bathroom. Jack knows how to tie a knot, but he likes when Kent ties it for him. He has enough height on Kent that Kent’s eyeline is directly at his collar. Kent ties a quick Windsor in the blue material that matches Jack’s eyes, and smooths his jacket collar down.

With his arms around Jack’s neck, Jack leans down and brushes his lips over Kent’s. “What was that for,” he demands, and Jack just shrugs, a dopey smile on his face.

“I wanted to,” he says, and moves past Kent into the bathroom, his hand on Kent’s hip.

Kent keeps an eye on Jack as he moves around the room, tying his own tie. Jack is styling his hair one second, but when Kent turns around to grab his socks, he hears the sound of Jack taking out another pill and sees the look of disgust on Jack’s face he always has when taking Lexapro.

“Did you just take a third tablet?” He asks, trying to keep his voice down. He wants to scream, to shout, to say  _ Hey, you’re  _ not  _ okay _ , but that never works with Jack.

“No, I forgot to take it before breakfast,” Jack lies, trying to look innocent. Kent knows all his tells, can see the way he’s tonguing at the inside of his cheek.

All of a sudden, Kent feels defeat in every cubic inch of his body. He’s known Jack for three years, and he’s been his best friend for most of them, and the guy has been in his bed for the last year. He just. Gives up. “Okay, Jack,” he says, and tries to inject his voice with all the tiredness he feels.

He doesn’t know if Jack can hear it or not, because he turns away and ties up his shoes. He doesn’t look at Jack until they’re in the elevator with Bob and Alicia, and their reflections are distorted in the elevator’s metal walls. Jack’s reflection is a dark grey with a pale blob on top, and Kent turns to face him, to just look at him. Jack’s jaw is clenched, and his shoulders are stiff with tension. Kent turns away and flexes his fingers. There’s panic lining his throat and he knows if tries to say anything, everything he doesn’t want to say will come out.

He flexes his fingers, digs his nails into his palms. He does it again, and again.

They walk into Bell Centre united, a family of three and one tagalong. Kent doesn’t want to think about how the outcome of the draft might create a chasm between him and Zimmermanns. He doesn’t want to think much of anything, really.

They sit Kent-Bob-Jack-Alicia, and Kent thinks about the two empty seats beside him, where Courtney and his mom could be. But his mom had work and Courtney had summer school, and Kent can’t wait until his signing bonus cuts down his mom’s hours.

It’s an hour until the draft starts, and Kent plays Words With Friends against Courtney until a news anchor grabs him, Jack, and John Tavares. They talk for a little bit, all three of them spouting the same answers about being happy to play wherever. Kent doesn’t want to think about the promos they filmed broadcasted on several networks.

Bettman gives his opening remarks, and Kent avoids rolling his eyes. He knows there are at least two cameras trained on his face. He sits up straighter as Las Vegas’s GM, Alex Murray steps up to the podium. He thanks Montreal for hosting the draft and then takes his pick. “With the first overall pick, the Las Vegas Aces pick… Kent Parson.”

Kent grins, and stands up. Bob gets up too and hugs him, and so does Alicia. She takes his suit jacket too, after she reminds him to take it off by tugging on the lapel. Jack gives him a handshake, almost perfunctory, and Kent has joked about Jack being a hockey robot, but his face is so blank and his eyes almost unseeing that Kent almost believes it for a second.

He doesn’t have time to dwell on it, because he’s walking to the stage and shaking hands with Murray, and Foley, and some other guys. He accepts the jersey with the black spade on the front. As he’s tugging it over his head, the crowd goes quiet then picks up.

The first thing he sees is Jack’s back, walking up the steps. The heavy thing in his stomach from the morning feels like it’s going to make him keel over, and he flexes his fingers in the fabric of his jersey. Bob and Alicia look like they don’t know whether to follow or to stay.

Alicia gets up and follows Jack while Bob sits back down in his seat. There’s a commotion on the draft floor before the Islanders get up and pick Tavares, and the Lightning choose Hedman. 

Kent smiles his best media smile through the pictures, thinking Jack should be beside him. Murray tells him that if he and his agent want to have a conference call later to work out the details of his contract, and that they can do that in a few days. Kent thanks him and goes to find Bob. He’s on his phone, the same look of defeat on his face that Kent had hours ago.

“Alicia can’t find him,” Bob says, and hands Kent his suit jacket. Kent should be doing interviews, but his best friend is probably on a mental breakdown and he can’t think of anything other than that.

“Is she at the house,” he asks, and Bob nods.

“We have no idea where he can be,” Bob tells him. “Shouldn’t you be giving interviews right now?” He asks and Kent shrugs.

“Jack is more important.” It’s the truth, and Bob smiles at that.

Bob leads him to the car, and the entire time Kent is trying to think of where Jack can be. Jack is only ever at home, the rink, or the gym. The only other place he goes with regularity is—the Zimmermann’s cabin in the Mont-Tremblant Park.

“How long has it been since he left?” Kent asks. 

“Maybe three or so hours,” Bob says. He’s tapping his fingers on the wheel.

“Go to the cabin,” Kent tells him. Bob looks over at him, but he takes the turns to get on the Transcanadienne. The drive is almost two hours—by the speed limit, and Bob risks getting pulled over by going almost 130. They get there a little over an hour, and Kent is out of his door before Bob gets the gear into park.

Jack has 23 Lexapro tablets, and that’s nowhere near enough to be fatal. But the cabin is where Jack was after having an appendectomy, and Kent doesn’t doubt there being some Vicodin left. Not to mention the substantial wine and liquor cabinet, and any other painkillers in there. 

Kent slams the door open to the only bathroom. Jack is leaning against the tiled wall. There’s the box his Lexapro comes in, the canister that held his Vicodin last year, some painkillers and a bottle of vodka. His lips are blue.

He presses his fingers to Jack’s neck and almost sobs with relief when he feels a pulse. 

Bob comes in behind him, already on the phone and speaking quietly in French. Kent keeps his fingers on Jack’s pulse point, his legs straining with the effort of staying up. Bob leaves after a while and comes back with the paramedics. Kent doesn’t know how much time has past, but he’s shaking.

Someone hands him a shock blanket and they help him and Bob into the ambulance. Jack looks half-dead with the oxygen mask over his face. Bob is talking to Alicia on the phone. Kent pulls the blanket tighter around himself and hunches over.

They spend hours in the waiting room before someone tells him Jack is okay, that he’s stable, that he’s awake. Bob and Alicia go in first. Alicia has tear tracks when she comes out and the lines on Bob’s face are heavier.

Kent goes in and Jack is looking out the window. They don’t say anything for a few moments. Then Kent said what’s been in the back of his head ever since Jack left Bell Centre.

“Was it because I was first and not you?” His voice is quiet, but it sounds like a gunshot. Jack even flinches, his shoulders jerking up. He’s tonguing at his cheek.

“No,” he lies.

“Bullshit, Zimms. Was being second not good enough? Are you not happy for me?” Kent demands. He steps closer to the hospital bed. Jack’s pale skin washed out even more by the harsh lighting. He can see the blue veins underneath his skin. He can see blue lips and blue fingertips and pill bottles and vodka.

“I had to be number one, Kenny,” Jack says, and he finally looks at Kent. His eyes are bloodshot, he looks worse than he did on that bathroom floor.

Kent shakes his head. “No, you don’t. First overall doesn’t mean you’re the best,” he says. Jack shakes his head. “We would’ve been competing for the Calder, we would be billed as the new face of hockey! You had to throw that away because you weren’t number  _ one _ ?” Kent’s voice rises sharply.

He takes a deep breath. Jack isn’t looking at him anymore, but his hands are twisting in the hospital bed blankets.

“Or maybe it’s me.” Jack flinches. “You couldn’t stand being second to Kent Parson? Maybe Tavares, he’s a great player, but being second to Kent Parson, that’s such a horrible concept.” Jack’s hands pull the fabric taut. Any tighter and it might break. Something in Kent’s chest  _ burns _ .

“So it is me.” He says. “Okay, Jack.” Kent doesn’t slam the door on his way out, but it’s a damn near thing. Bob and Alicia look at him expectantly when he stops in front of their seats. He doesn’t know if they heard anything or not.

“I have a plane to New York in a few hours I gotta catch. I’ll let myself in using the spare key. Tell me if anything changes.” He says, and turns to walk away.

Alicia catches his arm. “Kent,” she says, smiling at him. “I’m proud of you. Good luck in Vegas.” She’s genuine, but it sounds like she’s never going to talk to him again.

He’s spent almost two years in the Zimmermanns’s orbit, and he can’t imagine being in the NHL without having the ability to call on Bob and just talk. (He couldn’t imagine being in the NHL without Jack, either.)

“Thanks,” he says, and tries to smile. He doesn’t succeed.

He takes a cab back to the Zimmermann’s Montreal house and to the airport. His Aces jersey is still in Bob’s car, the one at the cabin. His dress shirt is wrinkled and he doesn’t know where his jacket is.

He grabs a snapback and jams it on his head and hopes no one recognizes him.

 

Courtney and his mom are waiting for him at JFK when he gets out of baggage, and Courtney hugs him around the middle and his mom wraps her arms around both of them. He deflates, slumps down, and Courtney lets out an “oomph” as she takes more of Kent’s weight.

“You okay?” His mom asks. He shakes his head and presses it into her neck like he did when he was little and scared on the subway.

“He did it because of me,” he mumbles.

“Don’t be an idiot, Kent Victory Parson. If he did it because the thought of you being better than him was too much then he wasn’t a very good friend.”

He wants to correct her, say they were boyfriends, but even that is too much. he just nods and straightens up. He has a flight to Vegas in two days, where he’ll be for a week before going back for training camp.

He spends his full day at home doing nothing and letting Courtney give him a manicure. The bright pink on his fingernails is a familiar sight, from when he was younger and letting Courtney do his nails was the only way to make her quiet.

She smiles at him, and he knows that she did it on purpose. He has to get most of it off, and it gets it off all of his nails but his right thumb.

“You missed a spot,” she says, and gets a cotton ball to wet with polish remover.

“No, I’m gonna keep this one,” Kent says. “The media knows I have a little sister.”

She smiles at him, brighter than before, and he ruffles her hair.

He packs light for his trip to Vegas, a duffel bag full of tanks and shorts. He brings his gear bag, because he’s going to have to shoot some promos.

Jean Bouchard is waiting for him when he gets out of his gate, holding a sparkly sign with his name on it. Jean is only a little bit taller than Kent, but he is wide as hell and made of pure muscle. He played with the Thrashers before being taken in the expansion draft, but his on-ice presence was always noticeable.

“You’re staying with me, Parse,” he tells Kent while leading him to his car. It’s a practical SUV, and it has a baby seat in the back.

“For the week or season?” Kent asks.

“Week.”

They go to Bouchard’s—”Butcher. It’s ‘cause I’m a good fighter and because Americans can’t pronounce my name.”—so Kent can drop of his bag before they go to the T-Mobile Arena. Kent pays a lot of attention to the scenery on the drive, and doesn’t realize they’re at the arena until Butcher throws the car in park.

Murray is waiting in the lobby of the place, and he smiles when he sees Kent. Kent is taken aback by everyone smiling; he hasn’t given a genuine smile since Murray called his name.

He gets an entry-level contract, and his signing bonus is drafted into the joint account he set up with his mom. There’s almost a hundred-thousand in his account. 

When he’s finished with Murray and PR has gone over his schedule with him, he’s surprised to see Butcher waiting for him. 

“We’re going out to eat,” Butcher says, and Kent follows him almost on autopilot. Butcher doesn’t say anything on the drive to a small diner, and he doesn’t bother making smalltalk with Kent while they’re waiting for their food.

He’s just about inhaling his burger when Butcher finally does speak. “If you ever want to talk about—about Zimmermann, I’ll listen to you.”

“Thanks,” Kent says, “but I don’t think I can.”

“When you’re able to,” Butcher repeats. Kent nods.

His week in Vegas passes by quickly. A PR person, Emilie, is almost surprised by how little coaching he needs for interviews. His shoots are almost flawless, and he’s finished with them earlier than anybody expected. Staying with Butcher is a bit tiresome, because he has a three-year-old daughter who enjoys pulling on Kent’s hair. She reminds him of Courtney when she was little, except she knew how to be quiet. (She learned a lot of things a toddler didn’t need to know.)

He goes back home to the two-bedroom apartment they’ve had for his entire life and sleeps through supper. He’s so tired, so very tired.

 

On his birthday, Courtney wakes him up by jumping on his bed, the springs squeaking with protest. She’s singing him happy birthday horribly off-key, but he grins. His birthdays have begun the same way ever since she was a little kid, and he wouldn’t want anything else.

Their mom is waiting downstairs with a red, white, and blue cake with nineteen candles in a circle on top. It’s probably chocolate. The bakery next door gives them a discount on the cake if they can theme it for the holiday.

There are a few presents on the table, messily wrapped because neither Courtney or Mom could ever do it easily. He smiles through their rendition of the song, Courtney actually singing it and not wailing, and suffers through her smacking his arm twenty times. His mom gives him twenty kisses, but he doesn’t mind. 

He missed both of them while he was in Canada.

His presents are just tank tops and shorts for the “desert weather,” but Courtney gets him on of the  **I ❤ NYC** shirts. “So you won’t forget us,” she tells him, looking solemn and he knows she means it.

He snags her around the waist, pulling her into his side and ruffling her hair. “I could never forget you, you lil’ weirdo,” he says, and laughs while she attempts to push him off. All the extra mass he has on her is pure muscle, and he doesn’t move very far.

“Kent, you’re an adult,” Mom admonishes, but she’s smiling.

His slice of cake is almost a quarter of the thing, but he manages to eat it all. He doesn’t have a nutritionist on him for the time being, so he figures no one will know. 

He spends the middle of the day messing with Courtney, but when it’s four the three of them head up to the apartment roof. When he was eight, the Ricks moved in and hosted a Fourth of July barbeque on the roof. Ever since, the tenants have kept up the tradition, even if the Ricks were kicked out after a year.

Manny is already tending to the grills when they get up there, and Courtney spots one of her friends and goes to talk to them. Kent is congratulated by everyone, and none of them even try to talk about money.

He's going to miss them in Vegas.

When the sun sets, the fireworks start, and Manny’s kids have bottle rockets and poppers. It’s nothing flashy, not like the ones in the distant, but the kids are laughing and trying to pop them on each others’ feet. 

By midnight Kent is ready to sleep, but he stays up for another hour, listening to everyone talk and laugh and smile.

The summer passes quietly after that. He works out, gains weight, skates some, does a few phone interviews. He avoids any hockey news, and lets Courtney screen the voicemails from the Zimmermanns before he’ll listen to them.

He’s excited to go back to Vegas in September, to play hockey. He feels more himself than he has in weeks, and his mom tells him so.

“I just want to play hockey,” he tells her, and gives a tired grin. She can see right through it, and she kisses his forehead before letting him go through security.

Stepping out of the air-conditioned airport is like opening an oven. He can feel his face drying out. There’s not a hockey player with a sign, but there is a hockey player with a car, and Jake Ward pulls up to the curb, directly in front of Kent.

“Get in,” he says, like he’s a superspy or something, but Kent complies. He only has his duffel and his gear bag, the rest to be shipped when he has a place to stay.

“Do you know who I’m stay with,” he asks, and Ward nods.

“Yeah, me. You okay with that?”

“Of course.”

Ward lives in Paradise, in the suburbs, closer to the arena than Butcher. Kent has his own bathroom and he takes advantage immediately, showering off the feeling of flying. Flying always made his skin feel itchy and he’s glad for it to get rinsed off.

 

Camp is in a week, but Emilie wanted him to come earlier so they can go over his public image.

“It isn’t good,” she says, opening a manilla folder. There are pictures of him from the draft, of Jack leaving the draft, of him leaving the hospital. “With the stories already circulating about Zimmermann—”

“What stories?” Kent asks. He’s avoided all hockey media for the summer, only keeping up with free agency.

Emilie gives him this  _ look _ , something akin to pity. “Some say it was a cocaine overdose, others say he slit his wrists. There are pictures of him going into a rehab facility, but that place is locked down.”

Kent flexes his fingers. She notices, but doesn’t say anything. “So what do I need to do?” He asks.

“Go out, party. If you drink, do it discreetly. Bond with the team. We need you to be the hockey superstar everyone calls you.” She tells him, and closes the folder.

“I can do that,” he says, and she smiles.

She outlines his interviews for the week, and the ones he’ll have during camp. He leaves her office, head filled with times. He doesn’t have anything scheduled for today, so he decides to go find the trainers and see if there’s anything he should do.

Kent squirms during the physicals, trying to ignore the trainer’s looks when they see he weighs under 180. He put on five pounds in the summer, which is basically a miracle. It’s all muscle, too.

The second he gets on the ice, though, that’s when he starts getting excited. Richy does a bunch of line combinations, but the one he does the most is Jarl and Butcher as his wingers. Jarl is almost as quick as he is, and Butcher has soft hands too.

They have an informal scrimmage on the end of the second day, and Kent taps in a neat wrister off of Jarl’s pass. The two crowd him into the boards, yelling like it’s a real game. They’re in the Gillette practice rink, not the Arena, but a rink is still a rink, a goal is still a goal.

Kent is still buzzing from that goal when he goes to an interview Emilie had him for. The reporter throws him softball questions at first and Kent gives him soundbites back. He’s genuine about being excited to play, but he can’t say too much or they’ll write him as arrogant. Alternatively, if he doesn’t say enough they’ll call him arrogant  _ and  _ ungrateful.

“What about Jack Zimmermann? Are you disappointed not being able to play against him?” The reporter asks. Kent’s vision tunnels.

“Well, I’m used to playing with him so—I always knew I would have to—um,” he trails off, closing his eyes for a second. He can hear people talking but it’s like he’s underwater, the words all garbled. There’s a burning in his chest and he tries to suck in a breath. When he opens his eyes, Warder is crouched in front of him, green eyes wide with concern.

His mouth is moving and Kent tries to pay attention to that. “—with me, Parse. That’s right, breathe with me,” he says as he takes exaggerated breaths. Kent remembers doing the same for Jack when he was panicking and he has a split second to think  _ I’m having a panic attack?  _ before he pushes that thought aside and tries to regulate his breathing.

It takes a while, and Warder stops talking at some point, but his hands on Kent’s knees ground him. He flexes his fingers, digging them into his thighs. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Warder says, and helps Kent stand up. His legs feel wobbly, like he’s been on a boat for hours and he takes an unsteady step forward. He stumbles and Warder slings an arm around his shoulders, holding him up. “Let’s go home,” he suggests, and Kent is too busy thinking about “home” to protest.

When they get to Warder’s house, he asks, “Beer or water?” 

“Water,” he says, and falls into Warder’s couch. He curls up into the corner, making himself as small as possible. Warder hands him a glass of water and sits across from him with his.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Warder reaches for the remote as he talks, setting the channel to HGTV. Kent turns his attention to the episode of  _ Love It or List It  _ as he says, “Not really.”

Warder doesn’t say anything, but he refills Kent’s glass when he drains it, and lets him watch the TV in peace. They’re watching  _ House Hunters  _ when Kent says, “I was the one who found him.” Warder shifts in his seat, but Kent only looks at him from the corner of his eye.

He knows the headlines printed when Jack’s hospitalization leaked, and the rumors that started circulating when people found out he was at rehab. Warder doesn’t say anything still, just watches the show, and the tension in Kent’s shoulder releases.

Warder never mentions it.

Their preseason opener is against San Jose in Cali, and Warder makes Kent sit next to him. The flight last over an hour, but Lady manages to get in an almost screaming match with Butcher about their daughters. Both of them look amused and their tone has the idea that this is a familiar argument, so Kent ignores it and plugs into his iPod.

He pats his pockets for his earphone splitter before remembering that Jack isn’t beside him, ready to listen to their pre-game playlist. He scrolls past their playlist, and plays the one that Courtney made for him.  _ Womanizer  _ begins to play, and Kent tilts his head back and closes his eyes. He dozes through the flight, but he’s ready to play hockey at the end of it.

The game is a close one, but Lady gets a goal a minute before the first period is over. Thornton comes back with a goal of his own two minutes into the second period. Acorn takes a penalty in the second half of the period, and Kent and Butcher hop over the boards for the PK. The  _ Jaws’ _ theme plays but Kent only has eyes for the puck and Jarl yelling at him across the ice.

They’re still tied going into third, but Marleau gets a goal with three minutes left on the clock, and the Aces can’t tie it up. 

Kent collapses onto his hotel bed, head pushed into the pillow. Acorn is his roomie, but he’s quiet as he gets ready for bed.

“Get out of your suit or you’ll crease,” he says, tugging on Kent’s jacket. Hr groans but manages to get his suit somewhat nicely draped over the desk chair. Acorn’s is in the closet, but whatever.

Acorn’s on the phone with his girl, or someone he’s talking mushy to, and it’s too late for Courtney to be up. There’s nothing for Kent to do, so he ends up staring at the hotel ceiling until it gets dark. Acorn has a fishing show on, but he makes no move to change the channel. Something heavy falls on Kent’s chest, but he curls on his side and tries to ignore it.

They win against the Wild and lose against the Aves. At the end of the preseason, Kent is just itchy, unable to wait for his first NHL game.

 

Kent is practically vibrating when he walks into the Arena. The preseason games were great, but actually playing in an NHL game, starting, no less, was his literal dreams coming true.

Lady keeps ribbing him about his obvious excitement, trying to rile him up. It almost works a few times, but Kent is ready to play hockey, and not even Lady’s stupid jokes about him getting knocked out by Myers is going to dissuade him.

Warder gives a pep talk, and the team goes through the tunnel. The order doesn’t matter, but Warder walks out first with Kent and Lady behind him, the A's on their chests visible. The crowd is made of mainly tourists, but there are some hockey fans in the seats near the glass. They cheer when they walk out, and as Kent steps on the ice for warmups, everything fades away.

He focuses on the puck, his lineys, and the goal. All of their plays capitalize on Kent’s speed and soft hands, and he’s ready to show them off. He takes off his bucket for the anthem, and Lady grins at him from the bench. Lady’s stupid Canadian-ness is his excuse for not even respecting the anthem.

Kent squares up against Roy for the puck, and he wins the face-off. Jarl grabs the puck and passes to Kent as soon as he crosses the blue line. He drops it back to Butcher as someone makes to check him into the boards, and he turns sharply, sending up a spray of ice and managing to squeeze past the oncoming d-man. Jarl gets the puck to Kent, and he dekes around two players, and shoots at the goal, left side. 

Miller blocks it but it’s still loose, and Roy grabs it and starts down the ice. Kent follows him but hops over the board as Lady’s line goes over. He sits down on the bench at takes a glance at the clock. His first NHL shift lasted thirty-two seconds, he had a shot on goal. He returns his gaze back to the ice, watching as Roy gets slammed into the board and three guys in black jerseys attempt to free the puck.

Every shift Kent has makes him grin, and he takes five out of the eight faceoffs he’s in during the first period. The score is still at zero when they go into intermission, but their SOG is 11 to the Sabres’s 3. Richy still yells at them in the locker room while Warder looms and looks disappointed.

Two minutes into the second period, Kent scores on a breakaway. Jarl and Butcher slam him against the boards as the goal horn blares. The sound of Katy Perry singing  _ shut up or put your money where your mouth is!  _ rings through the arena. His first NHL goal.

Warder gives him a head rub when he gets back on the bench. “Good job, kid,” he says, but Kent can only grin. He turns to his other side and expects to see—Jack. He doesn’t, and that thing in his chest doesn’t hurt at the edges. It’s still there, but he can ignore it in favor of the game.

Connolly gets a goal halfway through the period, but Vanek gets two minutes for slashing. The Aces manage to convert on the PP, Kent getting an assist on Butcher’s nice wrister. He slams him into the boards as payback for that earlier celly, but Butcher is only laughing in Kent’s ear. He’s only centimeters taller than Kent, but he’s half as wide. 

They’re still up by one at the end of the period, and Richy doesn’t yell as much when they get to the locker room. Warder even gives a speech, kind of awkward but heartfelt, and they file onto the ice with determination in their veins.

The Sabres get more shots at goal, but Lake doesn’t let anything in. They also take two more penalties, and the third line manages to convert on the second PP. Kent bangs on the boards, grinning when he hops over for the line change. He goes up against Roy again, but Roy wins it this time. The Sabres fight hard to tie it up, but at the end of the game, the score is still1-3. 

It’s the first time a new franchise won its season opener since the Aves in ‘95. They went on that year to win the Cup, and Kent can only hope the Aces will do the same. He knows that they won’t, that the team is still trying to work on their chemistry. One game does not a Cup win.

He’s grinning through the presser, giving soundbites of how he thinks “this is good start to a great season” and that he’s “still surprised his first NHL game gave him his first NHL goal.” He can see the reporters try to pin him down as being arrogant, but he’s too happy.

Emilie catches him as he’s walking out the arena with Warder. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she warns him, and he remembers all their talks about controlling the story. He nods; getting drunk isn’t the funnest idea, anyways.

They head out to a bar on the Strip, where no one will know who they are. Lake has a series of shots lined up in front of him, and when he takes one, the light catches on an angry bruise on his wrist. Kent can’t imagine actually letting someone slam him into the boards, much less a puck he would have to stop.

Lady tries to make him drink a fruity cocktail with an umbrella, but he waves it off with the excuse of having to drive Warder home. Warder is slowly but surely getting drunk, with a few empty shot glasses in front of him and a tumbler full of something strong.

He hangs with the other underaged rookies, Acorn who doesn’t want to drink and Cannon, who is looking at Lady’s drinks as if he’s trying to figure out the best way to snipe one.

Kent laughs. “Lady wins most of his faceoffs, I’m sure he can protect his alcohol.” Cannon slumps into his seat.

“Can drink in Finland,” he mumbles. He’s nineteen like Kent, but the country’s drinking age is lowered like Canada’s. Acorn has a can of Sprite, and Kent thinks about getting one for himself when Lady slams a cosmo in front of him.

“It’s virgin, like you,” he says before flouncing away. Kent takes a cautious sip and takes a longer one when it doesn’t taste alcoholic. He doesn’t know if Lady got him the drink just so he can say that or if there is a little vodka in it. There wouldn’t be enough in the glass to get him drunk anyways, so there’s not point to the latter.

It’s almost midnight when Kent decides to get Warder back to his house. He’s slumping into Lake, and neither look like they’re awake. It takes a bit of pushing, but he finally gets Warder up and into the car without him falling over. He drops him off at the couch in the living room when they get to Warder’s house, and Kent makes his escape upstairs.

He checks his phone for the first time all night, and sees a series of messages from Courtney as she tells him her thoughts about the game. The game began at 10 for her, and he’s surprised that their mom let her stay up. He’s even more surprised when he sees a voicemail from Bob, and it takes him a moment to decide if he wants to listen to it.

“Good game tonight, Kent,” he begins, and it sounds so much like what Bob said after their games in the Q. “That was a beautiful goal.” There’s a pause before he says, “I’m proud of you,” he says before hanging up. The voicemail is less than ten seconds, but it makes that hole in his chest widen.

He texts Courtney  **thanks** and reprimands her for staying up to watch the game. In the morning, she has replied back with  **ur first nhl game!!! i had to watch it!! mom let me!**

Kent smiles at his phone and thinks for the first time since the draft that he might be happy.

**Author's Note:**

> ok so there's [this on n's twitter](https://twitter.com/ngoziu/status/550095708791918592) and then in Parse - Part II the headlines on the newspapers are "Top Prospect Leaves Draft" and that's why draft day happens like this. also general handwaving towards the draft day overall because kent would not be able to go running into the canadian countryside after being picked first overall but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯.
> 
> this is the first in a series about kent's time in the nhl, and is very kent-centric. (and yes, i did use a hamilton lyric that compares kent parson to aaron burr. [kent, my first boyfriend, my first ex, maybe the last face i'll ever see. — jack zimmermann, probably])
> 
> follow me on [tumblr](https://astrophle.tumblr.com)


End file.
